Dr. Francisco Cigarroa performs a liver transplant with Dr. Robert Esterl at the UT Health Science Center in 2009. After stints as the UTHSC president and UT System chancellor, he’s back to his first love, working as director of pediatric transplant surgery and professor at the School of Medicine at the UTHSC in San Antonio. less

Dr. Francisco Cigarroa performs a liver transplant with Dr. Robert Esterl at the UT Health Science Center in 2009. After stints as the UTHSC president and UT System chancellor, he’s back to his first love, ... more

The South Texas Medical Center, initiated on a dairy farm northwest of downtown more than 50 years ago, is now the center of the largest sector of San Antonio’s economy, the $30.6 billion health care and bioscience industry. Undoubtedly the city’s biomedical complex has exceeded people’s expectations and will make more impressive gains by the year 2050.

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Our state’s population growth is explosive; from 2010 to 2014, the population increased from 25 million to nearly 27 million. At this pace, Texas will double in population by 2050. San Antonio is one of the five fastest-growing cities in the nation; if this trend continues, our city, already the seventh-largest in the U.S., will be in the top five by 2050.

Opportunities and challenges come with that, but also, if we’re smart, an educated workforce, economic prosperity and better health.

The Medical Center, the University of Texas Health Science Center and the University of Texas at San Antonio will be integral to a healthy and vibrant San Antonio in 2050. The School of Medicine at the health science center ranks near the top third of North American medical schools in National Institutes of Health grant awards, but my prediction is that, by 2050, the School of Medicine will be in the upper top quartile. The other highly rated schools at UTHSC will continue to advance. I also believe that in 2050 the health science center’s sister institution, UTSA, will be a Tier One research-intensive university.

UTHSC and UTSA will play a predominant role in biomedical research and translational science in 2050, and both campuses will be more integrated as it relates to interdisciplinary science, biomedical education and health professional education.

In fact, that’s the vision of the San Antonio Life Sciences Institute. SALSI calls for the two institutions to work together, synergistically, for the good of our students, faculty, staff and the community. Overall, discoveries worthy of the Nobel Prize will occur at UTSA and the health science center.

By 2050, San Antonio will be a medical destination of choice in Texas as well as Latin America. This will require strengthening our ties with Mexico and other Latin American nations and establishing centers of excellence across the South Texas Medical Center and San Antonio. This also will require easy access into San Antonio with an attractive and efficient airport, featuring strategic flights in and out of major cities across the U.S. and internationally.

In 2050 there should be no reason infants and young children, adolescents or adults will have to leave San Antonio for medical care. In fact, they ought to be coming to our city for health care.

We will be global leaders in regenerative medicine, military medicine, trauma care, neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular medicine including complex congenital cardiac surgery, adult and pediatric transplantation, medicinal chemistry and drug development, and oncology. Our Cancer Therapy & Research Center will be a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center before 2050. And finally, in 2050, San Antonio will have a nationally ranked children’s health care system reflective of San Antonio’s overall ranking as a top five city.